Page 125 of The Champion

Fatima didn’t touch him, but she did bow.

“Nay.” Stryder helped her up. “No more bowing except when you pray. You’re a free woman now.”

Fatima’s lips trembled as she took Alexander’s hand into hers. “Your uncle was right, little one. Your father is a good man.”

Rowena stepped back out of their way as Stryder led them toward his tent. She followed along behind them as Alexander skipped along, asking dozens of questions.

“Do you live here all the time, Father? Or do the English travel like the nomads? Will I be a knight like you when I grow up? Nana said I was a free man, but I don’t know what that means. She said my father, or you, that is, would tell me one day. Will I finally get to ride a horse? We rode on a boat to come here. It was expensive and we couldn’t eat anything but flat bread and water. If we were good at home and did our chores, they would let us have milk. Will you let me have milk when I’m good, too?”

Stryder laughed at the child and his incessant questions. “I should let you have milk even when you’re bad.”

“Really?” Alexander looked triumphantly at Fatima. “Did you hear that, Nana? I can have it when I’m bad too.”

“I hear, scamp. We shall see.”

Stryder showed them his tent. Alexander ran around and inspected every bit of it.

“A sword!” he shouted as he found Stryder’s arming chest.

Stryder rushed to take it from him. “Careful, child. ‘Tis very sharp.”

Alexander bounded around then, pretending he held a sword of his own as he battled imaginary knights, dragons and monster scorpions.

Rowena watched Alexander “battle” with laughter in her heart. “You must have had your hands full with him,” she said to Fatima.

“Aye, he even fell overboard the day we started our journey.”

Alexander paused in his play. “The sailors were very angry that they had to save me. They said they would feed me to the sharks if I fell again so I was very careful not to slip and fall.”

Swan came into the tent then froze as he caught sight of Stryder scooping Alexander up and tossing him over his shoulder.

“What is that doing here?” He indicated the boy.

“That happens to be my son, Alexander,” Stryder said hotly. “And I pray you show him proper respect.”

Swan looked horrified. “Nay, nay, nay, this cannot be. First ‘tis bad enough that Rowena shows herself here every time I glance away, but now this...? Tell him Simon is his father and send him to Scotland.”

Stryder was aghast at his knight and when he spoke, he was careful to use Norman French so that Fatima and Alexander wouldn’t understand him. “Simon has children aplenty already. The boy believes me to be his father, Swan. His mother is dead and I won’t denounce him.”

When Stryder’s gaze met Rowena’s, she understood why. She remembered the look he’d had on his face when he had told her about his own father denouncing him. The bitter pain that had been evident, even after all these years.

He would never hurt a child the way his father had hurt him.

Swan threw his hands up. “Fine. But have you given thought as to what we’re going to do with a child in our travels? How are we to ferret out the Scorpion while he trails along after us babbling and doing all those annoying things children do? And what of the people out to kill you, Stryder? Now they have another target.”

Rowena watched as the color faded from Stryder’s cheeks. He reached out and placed his hand on Alexander’s shoulder as the full weight of that settled on him.

Neither of them had given thought of that.

“I can take him to live with me in Sussex,” Rowena offered. “I owe that much to Elizabeth.”

“And if you marry?” Stryder asked her. “What will your husband say?”

She scoffed. “I will not marry. I’ve told you that.”

“If Henry decrees otherwise?”

Rowena opened her mouth, but was cut off by Swan. “Don’t even propose that the two of you wed. Think for a moment, Stryder. Again, I say to you, if you leave a son and wife in England while we are abroad, they are living pawns. Anyone who wants control over you merely has to capture them.”